Editors' Review

TuneWiki's Windows Media Player plug-in is part licensed lyrics spooler for your own songs and for streaming YouTube videos, and part social project. TuneWiki's interface reskins Windows Media Player's "Now Playing" window. As the music from your library plays, TuneWiki checks its online wiki database for song lyrics--which members mostly contribute, Wikipedia-style--and plays them in time with the music. If you search for YouTube videos through TuneWiki's plug-in, it will similarly serve lyrics, if available. The lyrics tools include support for language translations, the ability to manually scroll through lyrics rather than stream them, and a process by which you can easily manually reset the timing between a song's audio track and its associated lyrics.

In addition to TuneWiki's primary visual lyrics experience is a secondary social one. TuneWiki displays music maps on which other TuneWiki users are plotted. You'll be able to see who in close proximity is playing which song, or where in the world others are playing the same song as you. Clicking an individual's name can pull up the YouTube video of the song they're rocking so you can watch along, or can show the song's real-time influence on the globe.

While TuneWikie's lyrics database especially enriches the basic Windows Media Player experience, it harbors some flaws. Some tools aren't immediately intuitive, like the resyncing process, and the fact that only TuneWiki-approved editors can edit existing lyrics. A text notice on the editor-only area would wipe away potential confusion and frustration. Also, we'd like the size of the YouTube video to be adjustable. If the YouTube video stops, as it did once during testing, we want to refresh it without closing and reopening the app. When searching for songs, we'd like a more elegant display of the artist and album information returned in the results.

TuneWiki's plug-in is good enough to use now--the lyrics and music maps adding utility and interest--but will benefit from a few more development iterations.

Publisher's Description

+

From TuneWiki:
The TuneWiki Desktop app brings the award-winning TuneWiki mobile app experience to your computer. Features: Listen to your music with synced lyrics. Share and comment on your favorite songs to Facebook & Twitter. Get lyrics instantly translated into 40+ languages. ANDROID USERS: sync your iTunes library directly to your phone. Use Twitter, Facebook or TuneWiki to login and access your TuneWiki mobile profile. What does that song mean? Link directly to comment on and discuss the meaning of lyrics and songs on the TuneWiki website. Discover new music in your SongBox - songs that are being played and recommended by your friends. Explore Song Maps and real-time Top Charts to discover popular songs nearby and around the world. Create, manage, and edit playlists. View and edit detailed tag info for artists, albums, and songs.

What's new in this version:

Version 1.0 has a new UI, syncs your iTunes or WMP library with Android devices, and shares the songs you play with your TuneWiki followers and social networks.

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